ECOVAST REPORT 58 February 2015

Editor: Phil Turner46 Hatherley Road, Winchester, Hampshire UK SO22 6RRE mail : p.turner@semantise.com website http://www.ECOVAST.org

Discussion sites : http://ECOVAST.webs.com/

http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?SmallTowns Contents

Editorial

Report of the President

Obituary: Edmund Neville-Rolfe News from the Sections

Partner organisations

Details of events notified to the Editor

Františkovy Lázně

EDITORIAL

Details of the ECOVAST Biennial General Assembly conference, 27 - 31 March 2015, in the Czech Republic and visits are available in the events pages at the end of this Newsletter. In Cambridge, 7 - 9 April, Europa Nostra UK has a conference.

All are welcome to attend the Biennial Assembly in Františkovy Lázně, West Bohemia, Czech Republic in March. Several of us that will be there are also attending the Europa Nostra conference in Cambridge UK in April, including Valerie Carter, Tihana Fabijanić, Angus Fowler, Pam Moore, and myself. We hope to see you there. The theme is ‘Contribution of the Arts to the Understanding of the Significance of Place’.

This is timely, as Europa Nostra reports progress in this newsletter of recognition of the significance of the cultural heritage in Europe by the European Union, European Parliament and the Council of Europe. The new Europa Nostra project “ENtopia: Our Places in Europe” widens commitment to heritage by extending concern for and support to the most distinguished amongst the small local communities all over our continent - small towns, neighbourhoods and villages. They are a potent expression of the power of example both in preserving our shared cultural heritage and in pointing the way to a healthy and sustainable future of Europe.

In the UK, a Commission of the University of Warwick has reported on the future of cultural value: “Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth”.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/

A PDF of this newsletter can be accessed at:

http://www.dorfwiki.org/upload/PhilTurner/ecovastnews58.pdf

Please send copy for the next Newsletter to me, at p.turner@semantise.com by 17 April 2015

Phil TURNERPast President ECOVAST

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Mrs Valerie CARTERPresident ECOVASTMember ASSET Project TeamMember ECOVAST UK

It has been a very busy time for me since our last Newsletter, particularly for ECOVAST publications:

- The Celebration Leaflet. ECOVAST was 30 years old in 2014. At the International Committee meeting in the UK in May 2014 the 30th birthday of ECOVAST was celebrated (founded in 1984 in Germany) and a leaflet was prepared which reported activities during the last 10 years. This leaflet has now been produced, printed and sent around to many people and organisations. There is a link on the ECOVAST website news page and it may be downloaded from here.

- The publication ‘The Importance of Small Towns’ has finally been completed – thanks for all your help – and finally printed. The main purpose of getting this document with so many examples for all 39 countries across Europe, was to get copies out to all those countries. It has gone to all the National Rural Networks across Europe (mostly the European Union Member States) and all the associations of municipalities as these are the organisations that will be debating policies for the settlements in their countries. Each one had several copies.

The report is also featured in the ECOVAST website news page and may be downloaded from here. We had more than 1,100 copies printed and I have sent out more than 960 copies so far.

The cost of postage was very high indeed (as we knew it would be) but it was essential to get our views out to as many organisations as possible.

Packing up the parcels took me several weeks and I never want to see parcel tape again !!

The packages had to be less than a certain weight so many National Sections had several parcels. My local Post Office now treats me as a good friend – I had 163 individual parcels to send. They were even more pleased to see their building on one of the illustrations in the book.

The Council of Europe and the DG Agri and DG Regio parts of the European Commission already knew of our strong views for our formal Position Paper in October 2013 but of course they had copies of the newest publication. OECD were given copies of both the Paper and the book and were given a presentation on the work at their Rural Conference in October 2013.

I have had some good feedback.

Having gone so far in publishing our ECOVAST views I am anxious to discuss what more we could do – using our forthcoming conference in Františkovy Lázně, Czech Republic to consider what policies for Small Towns to recommend across Europe.

I was, of course, very sorry to hear about Edmund’s death. There is a formal Obituary below. He was a good friend of ECOVAST since the very beginning and a lovely man. I went to his funeral which was attended by more than 200 people – together with Michael Dower, Trevor Kearley, Phil Turner and Pam Moore.

Valerie J Carter, President

Valerie Carter made a presentation in Athens in 2014 on the Cultural Landscapes of Small Towns. The ECOVAST website news page has a link and the PDF may be downloaded from here.

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OBITUARY: Edmund Neville-Rolfe

Edmund Neville-Rolfe, agricultural economist, author and Honorary Member of ECOVAST, who has died at the age of 94, was a co-founder of ECOVAST in 1984, an active officer of the organisation for twenty years, and a loyal supporter right up to his death. With his background as a farmer in Wiltshire, England, and as a distinguished agricultural economist and advisor to the European Union, he contributed greatly to the expertise and reputation of our association. He had a lifelong interest in architecture, fine art and music (particularly opera), and was himself a talented watercolour painter.

Edmund came to the foundation meeting of ECOVAST in Bellnhausen near Gladenbach in March 1984 together with Francis Noel-Baker and Alan Leavett of the Rural Development Commission. The meeting had been fixed when Francis and Barbara Noel-Baker came to Marburg in autumn 1983 and went with us from the Förderkreis Alte Kirchen Marburg (Irmgard Bott, Jean Chanel and myself) to see some of the churches with which we were concerned. We had known Francis Noel-Baker since the Europa Nostra meeting in Hamburg 1978, had seen him several times since then in Brussels and in the summer of 1983 in Athens and in Euboea.

Francis met Edmund on an aeroplane, persuaded him to help, and brought him to Marburg. Edmund may have suggested that Alan Leavett should also attend. As Edmund later told me, he had a connection with my Oxford college, Trinity. In the late 1950s/early 1960s, a few years before I studied there (1964-67), Edmund as an academic agricultural expert had been allowed a room in the college – I think in the tower next to the chapel. He may have known the Domestic Bursar Robin Fletcher or the Estates Bursar, John Wright, and had a connection with Rhodes House.

At Bellnhausen Edmund took an active part in the discussion on the foundation of ECOVAST and the formulation of its statutes, indeed he invented the name European Council for the Village and Small Town and and the acronym ECOVAST. He became the first Treasurer of the new organisation and stayed in that post for almost 20 years. Edmund and his office in Brussels became the first real contact point of ECOVAST and the location of several early meetings of the international committee of ECOVAST.

I well remember going after one such meeting with my French colleague, Jean Chanel (whom we must remember for developing the contacts with the Council of Europe which led to our first major conference in 1986 in Strasbourg), to visit the site of the Battle of Waterloo/Belle Alliance – a Frenchman and a Briton of Scottish origin born in England.

Edmund took part in many of the early ECOVAST events, including the first committee meeting after the foundation in Austria in September 1984, the great international ECOVAST conference in Strasbourg in November 1986, and the foundation of the Polish Section in autumn 1989 in Poland. Edmund's mother was of Polish origin, which explains his Roman- Catholic belief and his strong commitment to Europe. He had served as liaison officer with Polish armed forces during the second world war.

From his very considerable experience and wisdom, Edmund‘s contributions to our debates and discussions were always important and very helpful, with a useful feeling of caution. I greatly enjoyed my discussions with Edmund. I vividly remember talking with him at one of our early international meetings about the future of the Roman Catholic church and the question of marriage of priests and even of female priests (in the late 1980s already existing in the Lutheran Church in Germany and in the Free Churches). In his last years – still living on the Wiltshire farm which he bought more than 50 years ago – he maintained contact with a wide circle of friends, retained an active interest in ECOVAST and was pleased to show visitors round the beautiful garden that he and his wife created.

Angus Fowlerwith contributions from Michael Dower

I cherish memory of him and Christmas cards he has sent to me! Rest in Peace, Edmund.

Tihana Fabijanić

Tihana with Edmund at the ECOVAST Conference in the Isle of Wight, UK 2010

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NEWS FROM THE SECTIONS

Austria

Our General Assembly of ECOVAST Austria is to be held on March 16th. The pleasant news is we have a new member. It is Ms. Katharina Rybnicek, an advanced student in Geography, who is particularly interested in landscape and other rural topics. She will attend the ECOVAST meeting in Františkovy Lázně to become introduced to the ECOVAST community.

ECOVAST Austria will stage a whole day workshop on landscape identification related to the General Assembly in Františkovy Lázně. We hope that this event will help to broaden the use of our manual “Guide to Good Practice, ECOVAST Landscape Identification”.

There are two project options emerging, both concerning Small Historic Towns, one carried out in Hungary and Austria, the other in the Small Historic Town Hainburg (Austria) at the Danube near Bratislava. The latter is of special interest for us, as this town is situated at the Green Belt.

The work and commitment of ECOVAST was briefly illuminated in the publication “Geography active”” 1/2015 of the Austrian Geographic Society - the example of the Green Belt, its landscapes and Small Historic Towns. (Publication in German)

Arthur Spiegler and Brigitte Macaria

CroatiaThe Annual Meeting of the Croatian Section ECOVAST for 2014 was held on 14 January 2015 in Zagreb at the ZgForum.The annual report of the work of the Croatian Section of ECOVAST in 2014 was presented to and accepted by the Assembly of the Croatian Section ECOVAST, including the paper (brochure) written on the past 20 years of ECOVAST in Croatia.“The protection of the architectural heritage of rural villages and small towns” - at the invitation of the Platform for Mobility and International Cooperation of ethnologists and cultural anthropologists "mobilnaEKA" Nikša Božić gave a lecture at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, Tuesday, January 27 2015.“Fragments missing in time - outstanding hotel architecture which was unbuilt on the Croatian

Adriatic Coast”- a lecture given by Dr Jasenka Kranjčević, and with other members of ECOVAST attending, on February 10, 2015 at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Zagreb.

A project on Heritage as an initiator of development in the area of Dubrovnik and the Bay of Kotor is carried out in the framework of cross-border cooperation between the Croatian and Montenegro organisations, under Component II of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance. The main partners in the project are the Municipality of Tivat and Regional Planning Institute of Dubrovnik-Neretva County. The Croatian section of ECOVAST participate in the project as one of the cooperating organisations. The overall objective is to contribute to the establishment of cooperation between the institutions responsible for the protection of natural and cultural heritage in Croatia and Montenegro through implementation of joint programs, education, transfer of knowledge and activities to raise awareness. Work on the project began in March 2013 to last 23 months and the final conference was held in Dubrovnik on February 6, 2015.The Croatian Network for Rural Development (Rural Development Network) gathers some thirty Croatian associations dealing with issues of rural areas and rural development (the Croatian section of ECOVAST is one of the founders HMRR) and is an important partner of the Croatian Ministry of Agriculture.The Croatian section of ECOVAST is present on the social network Facebook.

Tihana Stepinac Fabijanić

Hungary

Dezső Kovács reports on a LEADER project

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Mecsek Honey Road – New initiative from Baranya County, Hungary

Honey, a beekeeper’s main product generally gets into the consumer’s hand not as a specialist locally produced merchandise but as a processed mass product which was originally bought up from a number of small producers, mixed together in barrels, homogenized, processed and then bottled in jars to be sold on to consumers. 80% of the honey in Hungary goes into export as acacia honey or ’mixed’ flower honey in barrels. One of the famous beekeepers characterised this situation as follows: “it is like mixing together all the famous brand-name wines of the Villány winemakers - Tiffán, Gere, Bock, Polgár, Malatinszky- and selling it as Villány red”. From a marketing and sales point of view it is not an overstatement to say that beekeepers are twenty years behind the expertise of Hungarian winemakers.

Hungarian honey consumption is low, 60-80 dkg/year per head. Only a small minority of beekeepers are engaged in selling locally. In these cases their customers are mainly their friends, neighbours, relatives and passing Hungarian and foreign tourists - who also buy significant quantities of honey and other products, like propolis, pollen, beeswax candles etc. The honey is excellent quality and beekeeping as a profession is poor at disclosing many interesting secrets for visitors. The consumption of honey and other bee products is very healthy. These secrets are connected to a healthy life-style, maintaining good health, beauty products, cosmetics, sport, and the food industry. Additionally, the pollination of flowers by bees is an incredible gift for the benefit of nature and humankind.

Mecsek Honey Road project is a voluntary network among those beekeepers who would like to sell their products directly in their own communities and on their own premises.

Objectives of the Mecsek Honey Road are as follows:

• Promoting the excellent quality of Mecsek honeys and other beekeeper’s products and providing support for local sales.

• A unified image and promotion of producer’s honey within the region’s tourism market .

• Improving the marketing skills and experiences among beekeepers.

• Establishing “Mecsek Quality Honey” as a specialist local brand.

To achieve these objectives four Leader action groups (Mecsek-Völgység-Hegyhát, Mecsekvidék, Szinergia, Zengő-Duna) came together in an act of cooperation in Baranya county and together with local beekeepers and their organisations they submitted an application for financial support to the Leader regional cooperation programme. Leader action groups represent an important organisational support network and they also prefinanced the project’s achievements.

Mecsek Honey Road aims to reach different target groups ranging from kindergarten to primary school kids and their parents, the adult population especially health conscious consumers, silver agers and Hungarian and foreign tourists as well. With this initiative the beekeepers’ products and beekeeping traditions become part of the tourism offer within the region.

Mecsek Honey Road is a voluntary network. The only condition of membership is to sign up to the Honey Road’s Ethical Code of Conduct. The Ethical Code describes the principles of fair beekeeping, respect for consumers, bees and fellow beekeepers. Cooperation between members is based on democratic principles. The Honey Road project expects individual responsibility and ethical behaviour.

Basically the Mecsek Honey Road is a marketing and community development tool, which encompasses several sub-projects.

Most important are the following:

• 10 different educational posters to support a beekeeper’s presentations to visitors.

• Promotional poster for the Mecsek Honey Road project.

• Promotional materials: coffee mugs, T-shirts, aprons, drawing books.

• Personalized promotional leaflets and business cards for individual beekeepers.

• Drafting and approving the Ethical code.

• Planning the design elements of the Honey Road.

• Coloured catalogues to introduce the Mecsek Honey Road beekeepers of, (Spring edition in 2014, Autumn edition in 2015).

• Tourist map on the ’stations’ on the Mecsek Honey Road.

• Story book on bees and drawing book for kids.

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• Creative designs for labelling and packaging bee products.

• (Competition for graphics students at Pécs University)

• Information booklet for consumers about speciality honeys and their uses at home.

• “Honey, the bee and men” - competition and quiz for primary and secondary school pupils.

• Study tour for journalists along the Honey Road.

• Press reviews on beekeeping themes. Newsletters about Honey Road events published every second week.

• Foundation of the “Order of Honey Knights”.

• Training materials - “Local Sales of Honey in Europe”.

• “County Honey Days” - free honey tasting at cultural and handicraft events in Orfű and in Magyarlukafa in connection with eco-markets.

• Marketing training for beekeepers and training materials (40 hours)

• “Honey Weeks” in kindergartens and primary schools. (Beekeepers present their honeys, equipment, honey-tasting for kids, readings from the Bee storybook etc. Cooperation with kindergarten teachers).

• Webpage (www.mecsekimezeskorut.hu) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/mecsekimezeskorut)

• Honey competition between beekeepers.

• Participation in 6 small town cultural and tourist festivals (Pellérd, Kárász, Bóly, Mágocs, Szászvár, Pécsvárad).

• Closing conference of the Mecsek Honey Road project disseminating experiences on local sales of honey.

The Honey Road project starts off with fifty beekeepers as participants. 80% of them have secondary school or university graduation and 80% of them also have a specialist beekeeping education. 4/5th of them have already been practising beekeeping for at least 7 years. Many of them had already learned the basics of beekeeping in his/her childhood from family members.

A very important mission of the Mecsek Honey Road is to popularise a culture of honey consumption. Beekeepers are not only producing top-quality honey, they are also involved in

propagating the different types of honeys. They have a part to play also in presenting the benefits of honey consumption and the numerous ways of using beekeeping products.

Mecsek Honey Road closely cooperates with the well organised local beekeepers’ associations and the National Beekeepers’ Association, as well as other organisations like Rural Tourism, Ecotourism and Greenways organisations. In Baranya county there are 1300 beekeepers. It is strongly hoped that the activities of the Honey Road will be attractive to beekepers who themselves have medium and long term plans in growing local sales under their own name and on their own premises. Mecsek Honey Road is an opportunity for beekeepers to be more successful at local selling; nevertheless they will be actively launching their own initiatives as well. It also provides an exceptional chance for consumers to get acquainted with several excellent beekeepers, their honeys and other beekeeping products.

Mecsek Honey Road is a pilot project. The initiators strongly hope that beekeepers and their products will grow in popularity with customers and as a result of the planned activities that honey consumption will increase in the county and that a new generation of honey consumers will grow up.

Kovács Dezső PhD. freelance rural researcherRetired associate professor of Szent István University Gödöllő and Honorary professor of West Hungary University Sopron. email: Kovacsd@rkk.hu; cell: +36309599106; skype: kovacsdezso

Dezső Kovács

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Germany

More on DENKMAL 2014

At Denkmal/Leipzig at the beginning of November 2014, ECOVAST was represented with a stand together with the Förderkreis Alte Kirchen (Marburg) (representing also other organizations) DenkmalWacht Brandenburg/Berlin had a separate stand with the organisations fighting to save gas street lighting in Berlin. The Committee of the German Section of ECOVAST had a meeting at the stand at Denkmal and discussed the forthcoming ECOVAST event in the Czech Republic (location, excursion etc.). At the main international conference this year at Denkmal on historic facades - stucco, plaster etc I moderated the first, the really international day. I also gave a report on the Federation for Religious Heritage conference in Halle which took place in the week before. The Committee of the German Section will be having another meeting in March before the events in the Czech Republic. We are planning to hold a meeting later in the year on the small towns, Pegau and Groitzsch,  in brown-coal area in western Saxony, south-west of Leipzig.

Angus Fowler

Reports were made to mark the 30th anniversary of the International Association ECOVAST at the annual general meeting of the German Section on 15 June 2014 in GörlitzSince 1996, the European Council for the Village and Small Town and its German section with its founder, the Förderkreis Alte Kirchen (Marburg) (FAK MR) has been a regular participant in DENKMAL Leipzig fair.

The association founded in March 1984 at the small Hessian village Bellnhausen in Gladenbach (Marburg-Biedenkopf) with participation of representatives from several European countries, including the former Yugoslavia, and it began among other things, from the practical work of FAK MR and Europa Nostra. At that time there were hardly any organizations for rural areas in Europe, to address its population, its economy, its buildings, let alone with rural development.

ECOVAST is seen as a campaigning organisation for rural areas. ECOVAS was instrumental in the European Countryside Campaign 1987/88. The German section of ECOVAST(then in West Germany) was established first in 1988. This was followed by the establishment of further sections:

Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Russia, Austria. In the summer of 1990, a section established in the GDR, came together after the reunion with the West German section in November 1990.

Closely with the FAK MR , the German section then often worked particularly in the eastern states and an important part was work for landscape / cultural landscape - the destruction of nature, landscape, villages with their buildings with the practical expulsion of the population alerted by the mining of brown coal in Western and Eastern Germany and tried to no avail to save several villages (Cloud Mountain, German-Ossig, Heuer village Horno).

In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the German section has conducted several seminars for rural development. From this work, the National Association for Rural Tourism originated there and the Association of conservation and use of estates in Mecklenburg. ECOVAST International has helped prepare actors in the field of rural development, for entry into the European Union in the countries of Eastern, Central and Southeast Europe, in conjunction with Swedish allies and the PREPARE partnership and the European Rural Alliance.

In recent years, the ECOVAST international and its German section in particular has worked intensively with small towns in Europe and Germany and submitted a detailed report to the European Union and Commission and the relevant directorates.ECOVAST operates an international exchange of experience in professional conferences, seminars and literature on the sustainability of rural settlements, landscapes and habitats, supplemented by studies and projects.

Angus Fowler and Irmelin Küttner

Ralf Bokermann of ECOVAST Germany has produced a short paper on the subject of "Adaptation of existing building stock with declining population". The paper is on the ECOVAST website and may be downloaded from here.

Russia

Olga Sevan has told the editor that she will not be able to attend this year’s General Assembly in the Czech Republic because she will be in Istanbul for a conference on wooden churches. Olga remains as the long standing President of Russian Committee of ECOVAST, although she reports that there are now few members because, as she says “All people grow old and the organisation too”.

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Olga is no longer working at the Institute for Culture Research which was supported by the Russian Ministry of Culture. She is now with the Russian Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage in Moscow.

Olga remains involved with ICOMOS, and took part in the 18th Assembly of the International Council of ICOMOS. It was held in Florence from 6-14 November 2014. Approximately 2,000 experts from 95 countries attended. 5 persons took part in it from Russia. During the Assembly the members from different countries discussed the work which they had made, the re-election of the leaders etc. The international symposium on "Cultural heritage and landscapes - the value of humanity" was organised at Florence, and Olga presented a report "Socio-cultural context of historic landscapes and settlements for sustainable development”, which will be later published on the site http://florence2014.icomos.org/en/symposium/theme2

Editor

Monograph Andrei Ivanov "Yerevan. Studies on the spirit of the place", Moscow, 2014

"What city this book about?

For a long time, while waiting for the book to mature, saturating it with images, I believed it to be about Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. But now I am becoming more and more aware that this is not quite true. The real hero of this book is probably not the Yerevan everyone is used to. This book is about my own, personal, individual city, and how I see, experience and build it up inside. This is not the only city I’ve ever loved, there have been other important places for me before. But one day Yerevan added itself to this list, completed it and made it to the top. So, all the others – and Yerevan”.

Here is a short fragment of the press release prepared by the publisher of the book, Armenian Agency Mediapolis Creative Projects Bureau, for the presentation, which took place on December 12, 2014 in Yerevan:

“The book is the result of a personal “appropriation” of Yerevan by the stranger and the gradual transformation of the city from the “alien” to the “own”. The author, using the method of the “poetic comprehension” of reality, reveals hidden environmental values on examples of his favourite places. The important parts of the book are the stories of actual changes of the appearance of Yerevan. The author examines such topics as the demolition of architectural monuments such as the Afrikyan’s house, the fate of vernacular districts as Kond, the creation of new public spaces such as the Northern Avenue. ...Ivanov tries to find his own way to define the genius loci of Yerevan”.

Andrei Ivanov

United Kingdom

After the sadness of the funeral of Edmund Neville-Rolfe at the Chapel of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, UK on 21 February 2015, there was an informal meeting of ECOVAST UK members. Left to right: Phil Turner, Valerie Carter (Chairman ECOVAST UK), Trevor Kearley, Michael Dower and Pam Moore

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Partner Organisations

EUROPA NOSTRA and the European Heritage Alliance

On 4 February 2015 I represented ECOVAST at the offices of Europa Nostra in Brussels at a meeting of the Heritage Alliance on the progress of recognition of the Cultural Heritage by the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of Europe.

http://www.encatc.org/culturalheritagecountsforeurope/2015/02/

On 3 February at the University of Leuven, there were presentations on the Research project on the cooperation project “Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe” by the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (KU Leuven) (RLICC) .

A report will be published soon. There will also be a report from the Council of Europe. These will be given publicity at the Europa Nostra annual meeting and award ceremony in Oslo 10-14 June 2015. A conference of Heritage Counts for Europe (RLICC) will be in Oslo on 12 June.

The International National Trusts will have more on the subject at a conference in Cambridge UK 5-11 September 2015. http://internationaltrusts.org/programmes/2015-conference-in-england

It is unusual for there to be no long delay between publication of the findings of research and recognition by European bodies of governance. Indeed, even earlier there was a Communication from The European Commission was published in

July 2014. Among those present were: Xavier Prats Monné, Director-General, DG Education and Culture; Silvia Costa, Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education, European Parliament.

Phil TurnerPREPARE

www.preparenetwork.org

ECOVAST was a co-founder in 2000 of the PREPARE Partnership for Rural Europe, whose aim is to strengthen civil society in rural areas and to promote multi-national exchange in rural development. The other founding partners were Forum Synergies and the national rural networks of Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Hungary.

Since then, the partnership has steadily grown, as new national rural networks have been created with our help and joined us in the work. In the first six years, new national rural networks were created in the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. From 2006 onwards, our attention turned to South Eastern Europe, notably the Western Balkan countries. The outcome is the creation of national rural networks in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia (former Jugoslavia), Montenegro and Serbia and significant progress in strengthening civil society in rural areas in Albania and Kosovo. Our work in the Western Balkans reached a climax in an ambitious multi-national event in April 2014, focused on ‘Empowering Rural Stakeholders’, with traveling workshops and conferences in Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

From the autumn of 2014, we are working increasingly in the wider ring of states which are recognised by the European Union as candidate, potential candidate or neighbourhood countries. Our focus is on two main groups of countries :

- those around the Black Sea - Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia

- the Maghreb countries of the southern Mediterranean - Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

-Michael Dower and Valerie Carter

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European Rural Parliament 2015PREPARE is working with two other pan-European organisations – European Rural Community Alliance, and European LEADER Association for Rural Development – to organise the second European Rural Parliament, which will be held in Austria in the first week of November 2015. Preparation for this event is centred on a simultaneous series of national campaigns in every EU member state, plus some European countries outside the EU, to gather an ‘upward cascade of ideas’ from rural communities related to their concerns, needs, aspirations and achievements. These ideas will be brought together in a Manifesto and report to be submitted to the ERP 2015 Gathering.

We have sent information to all national sections of ECOVAST about those who are leading the national campaigns in their countries, and we hope that the national sections will indeed seek to contribute to those campaigns. We will shortly be reopening the European Rural Parliament website, which will offer information about the campaign and the events for those who are interested

Michael DowerPast President of ECOVAST, and joint Coordinator of the European Rural Parliament mdower6@btinternet.com

www.europeanruralparliament.com/

EVENTS NOTIFIED TO THE EDITOR

27 - 31 March 2015 Czech Republic - West Bohemia

ECOVAST will hold the Biennial General Assembly

in 2015 in the Czech Republic on Saturday 28 March.

This will be preceded by an Extraordinary General Meeting to approve changes to the statutes. Formal notice to members was given on 5 January 2015 and a registration form may be downloaded from the ECOVAST website http://www.ecovast.org/english/events_e.htm <REGISTRATION FORM.docx>where details of the agenda and accompanying programme of events may also be downloaded <ECOVAST EVENT FRANTISKOVY LAZNE Programme.docx>.

Before the meetings of ECOVAST Members on 28 March a Conference on European Small Towns will mark the culmination of the ASSET Project, “Action to Strengthen Small European Towns”. There will be speakers from the University of West Bohemia on the Competitiveness of Small Towns in the Czech Republic. The work of the Association of Local Government of the Czech Republic will be presented. Sunday 29 March will be a full day tour of small towns in both the Czech Republic and Germany.

Monday 30 March is proposed for a tour of the “Green Belt” area of the former Iron Curtain followed by an afternoon workshop.

27 March is arrival day and 31 March departure.

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28 - 30 March 1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ENtopia: Our Places in EuropeChios Island, GreeceThe “ENtopia programme” was announced at EUROPA NOSTRA’s 50th Anniversary Congress in Athens in June 2013 and is now followed by a first European conference specifically devoted to this programme. This conference is being held on the island of Chios because the mastic producing villages of Chios with their distinguished medieval architecture developed mainly under Genoese rule between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, are one of the first candidates for inclusion in the “ENtopia programme”. At the conference, representatives from ten different European countries (three of them being member states of the Council of Europe but not of the EU) will present specific areas that they consider suitable for inclusion in the programme. They will also discuss suggestions for the future coordination and development of the “ENtopia Programme” itself.47-9 April, 2015: Europa Nostra UK Annual Meeting in Cambridge

The meeting, exploring the ‘Contribution of the Arts to the Understanding of the Significance of Place’, promises to be of exceptional interest. There will be private visits to colleges and the Fitzwilliam Museum. On the morning of 9 April there will be a visit to Ely Cathedral and monastic buildings. On 7 April Lord Renfrew will deliver the Duncan-Sandys Lecture. The conference on 9 April will hear from Tim Knox, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Tihana Fabijanić, Vice-President of ECOVAST (the European Council for the Village and Small Town) and Angus Fowler (ECOVAST Germany, ECOVAST Vice-President and former Chairman of the Förderkreis Alte Kirchen) will be speaking.

ECOVAST UK is partnering these events and we hope to see many members of ECOVAST in Cambridge.

http://www.civilscape.eu/civilscape/content/en/events/index.php?jid=1o1

14-17 May 2015. Pilsen (Plzen CZ). CENTRAL EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE FORUM

PEOPLE – EMOTIONS – LANDSCAPE – SOLUTIONS is an event reflecting a process of the formation of the sustainable society living along the Czech and German border in the former Sudetenland. The burden of the past personal and national history of this region left a significant mark in people’s hearts and the landscape structure. The border area has been a witness to destruction of many villages, churches, old historic roads, roadside crosses, peace stone markers, piped brooks, and so on. Many villages remain deserted with devastated cultural landscape. There is the complexity of the challenge we face today.

3-6 June 2015 Oslo Norway. DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Constitutional ideals of democracy, human rights, equality and freedom have a tangible landscape dimension. Democracy is rooted in free debate in public spaces – landscape is the spatial materialisation of democracy. At this time of global environmental and economic challenges driving increasing social tensions, there is urgent need for sustained discussion and debate about the role of landscape in society and for relevant knowledge and insights that address and tackle complex situations.

11-12 September 2015. Riga Latvia. BALTIC LANDSCAPE FORUM 2015

The Baltic Landscape Forum will focus on the change processes of our marine and coastal landscapes around the Baltic Sea. Our coastal and marine landscapes are a shared resource and a shared responsibility where different values meet, i.e. cultural, ecological, aesthetic, social and economic. The European Landscape Convention (ELC) is an instrument for ensuring a richer life environment, where landscape diversity is managed sustainably. In this context the sometimes different perceptions of local people, visitors and tourists are a key how these landscapes can be used in a sustainable way. In this way the Baltic Landscape Forum will be an important stakeholder event for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention on local and regional level.

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June 2015. The 2015 European Heritage Awards Ceremony and Europa Nostra Congress will take place in Oslo, Norway in June 2015. The Awards will be made on 11 June. The award ceremony will be preceded by the Excellence Fair, in the morning of the 11 June, at the Domus Academica of the Oslo University, during which presentations will be given by the laureates about their winning projects.

The conclusions of the European project ‘Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe’, coordinated by Europa Nostra and supported by the EU Culture programme, will be presented on 12 June at the Munch Aula, with its famous paintings by Edvard Munch, of the Domus Media of the Oslo University. This session will also include a presentation of the achievements of the EEA Financial Mechanism’s support to cultural heritage.

The 2015 congress will have a special focus on Youth and Cultural Heritage. Fortidsminneforeningen - the Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments, in cooperation with Europa Nostra, invites young craftsmen from across Europe to participate in a week-long workshop on the traditional crafts and building techniques in wood as building material from 7-14 June.

Following the meetings of the Scientific Council, the Board and the Council of Europa Nostra, the annual session of the General Assembly will take place on 13 June at the Oslo Military Society.

Programme and registration are to be found at:http://www.europanostra.org/oslo/

7-11 September 2015 Graz, World Heritage Site & Austrian Open Air Museum Stübing.

International conference using various didactic approaches and methods.

Open Air elements in and out of town. Including a tour of the Styrian Iron Route - Upper Styria.

Participants can apply for funding via ERASMUS+ – Key Action 1: learning mobility of

individualsFor further funding information contact:your national agency

For information related to the conference, please contact the organiser:MUSIS.We are looking forward to your application or paper!www.musis.at

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